


Starting, and Starting Over

by feverdreambloodopera



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Fighting, Gen, Ineffectual Adults, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Character Death(s), Parent Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:31:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6521764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverdreambloodopera/pseuds/feverdreambloodopera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a response to a short prompt by hanni-babe on tumblr (now <a href="http://cemetery-witch.tumblr.com/">cemetery-witch</a>): "Somebody talk to me about Will Graham’s childhood," that I'm moving over to AO3 now that I have an AO3 account. </p>
<p>So what was Will's childhood like?</p>
<p>It was lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starting, and Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannigramcracker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannigramcracker/gifts).



Will was lonely. His mom died when he was just an infant. His father went from job to job working in boatyards, barely able to make ends meet. Will had some friends in early childhood, but his father moved them often enough that he was always saying goodbye. They couldn’t afford to keep a dog, but Will fed the neighborhood strays anyway, and there were always some around. Will’s dad knew what Will was doing and gently scolded him not to waste the money and food like that, most of the time. Sometimes he just pretended not to notice. Will’s closest companion was his father, who brought him out to the boatyard for hours and hours when he was working, since he couldn’t afford a babysitter. There, working in the quiet, fading light beside his dad, Will learned everything there is to know about diesel motors. After Will went to bed, his father would have a few drinks, nod off, and sleep in the chair in the living room of their one-bedroom trailer.

By the time Will reached adolescence, when other children’s mirror neurons were melting away, Will hung onto his, leaving him sensitive and sometimes emotional. Other kids thought he might be an easy target and picked on him, making fun of his messy hair, glasses, and frayed, second-hand clothes. By then the Grahams had moved to the Great Lakes area and Will’s father was working on the boats and toys of the upper crust elite, so he counseled Will to ignore the bullies and not to cause problems for them.

And Will _tried_ to ignore them–he really did. He tried to content himself with snide comebacks they barely understood, but sometimes he couldn’t contain his anger and he fought back, getting him suspended from school on more than one occasion. His teachers had seemed to like him when he was younger and sweeter, but now they were wary of him: stung by his occasional caustic remarks, unnerved by his unpredictability around the other students.

Once, on his way home, he found two of the boys from his class throwing rocks at a small, dark girl who lived with her mom, a school custodian, two spaces down from his. Will ran to help her, and they turned on him. They pushed him between them, knocked him down, and laughed at him. He was smaller than they were, and they didn’t think he could do much to them.

But they were wrong. Will was wiry and strong from as much work as he’d always done to help his dad out. He launched himself at one of the boys and caught him full across the middle, knocking the wind out of him. Will climbed on him and hit him, hard, four times in the face, a big gout of dark red blood staining his knuckles as the boy’s nose broke. The other boy managed to drag Will off then and Will rounded on him.

When the police arrived, they had to call in an ambulance to take the second boy away. He had a broken eye socket and a skull fracture, but the damage was repairable. Will had stopped himself before he’d gone too far. He crouched in the weeds next to the little girl’s trailer while she sat next to him and said she was sorry. She’d gotten frightened and called 911. He told her it didn’t matter.

The police arrested him.

Will had counseling to do then. Hours and hours of sitting in chairs across from tired, underpaid, state-employed therapists who had no real idea either what was wrong with him or how to help him. He learned to sit silently and watch their mouths move, or stare at the pulse beating at the bases of their throats, so he wouldn’t have to look them in the eyes and hear what they were thinking so loudly. If he held his head just so, the rim of his glasses would line up with their eyes, blocking them completely from his vision. He was thirteen.

The one bright spot in this time was his probation officer: ex-military police, he was thirty years old, with watery blue eyes and a prematurely bald head. He listened better than he talked, and sometimes Will even spoke to him first. The man was always calm and steady, and Will never had to worry about what he was thinking.

He was the one who suggested that if Will wanted to protect people, maybe he should consider a career in law enforcement. Will’s adolescent record need never become public. But Will would have to learn to control his urges, he said, and to do that, he would have to really come to know and understand himself. And so, partly for the hope this gave him, and partly to make up for his lapse to his father, Will dedicated himself to learning self-control, and to knowing what made him tick.

The Grahams moved again, several times, before Will graduated from high school. He graduated with honors, earning scholarships and financial aid based on need, so that he could attend a public university. But his father, who never graduated high school himself, never saw this. His father died in early May of Will’s senior year at high school. He had been out fishing late into the evening and somehow fallen into the shallow waters. His blood alcohol level was .22%.

Will was able to work his way through the summer and begin school as a freshman in fall. For most, starting college holds all the promise of beginning the great adventure of life. For Will, it was starting over.

 


End file.
